Security measures allow the public to continue to live normal lives in an increasingly dangerous world. Because of the increasing dangers, security precautions are becoming common aspects of modern life. For example, security checkpoints at airports and other public locations provide increased safety to the public through the screening, location, and collection of harmful items, thereby helping to prevent the presence of these harmful items in the public locations. In exchange for this increased safety, the public trades inconvenience and loss of privacy.
To help ensure the general acceptance of security checkpoints, the checkpoints should minimize the costs to the public. Various performance measures quantify these costs to the public. For instance, the delay time associated with a checkpoint may be measured, and the security checkpoint may be modified to minimize the delays.
Conventional security checkpoint configurations typically suffer from several disadvantages. Primarily, the conventional checkpoint may not process the public with optimal efficiency. Because of resulting delays, the public is frequently dissatisfied with the conventional security checkpoint configurations. Even if the delays associated with a checkpoint are minimal, the checkpoint may cause public dissatisfaction for unnecessary delays and for the perception of unnecessary delays.
Specifically, chaos may occur in a conventional security checkpoint as the “clean” (people and items cleared through the checkpoint) and “dirty” (uncleared) people mingle. The mingling may cause delays as people travel back and forth through checkpoint. The mingling may also create potential security concerns as a “dirty” person flagged for additional screening is allowed to interact with other people or retrieve her bags, prior to the additional screening. Thus, the mingling presents the opportunity to dispose of a suspicious object with a person or item that had already cleared inspection.
Furthermore, the conventional security checkpoints do not use available space and allocate relatively expensive search equipment efficiently. Instead, the conventional checkpoints are generally installed haphazardly.
Also, people passing through the checkpoint are separated from some of their items, creating a potential for loss or theft of the items. Conventional checkpoint configurations generally do not address this problem.